Even as she thought it, her feet tangled over each other and she went down hard, Kale's body landing on top of her.
Go, go, get up, now!
She jumped back up, groping for Kale, struggling to haul him off the floor, and made the mistake of looking up one more time.
They had started crawling out.
The blaster-twisted hole they'd created in the shaft was jagged and they cut themselves along the way, twisted spikes of durasteel slashing their uniforms and gouging deep into the pouched sacks of rotten innards that were their bodies. One of them-a guard whose face she vaguely recognized from his visits to the infirmary-was instantly impaled and hung there flailing while the others scrambled over him.
In her arms, Kale groaned, tried to straighten his body, writhing around to look at her, and then fell slack again. He was trying to talk to her, she realized; despite his injuries, he'd actually found the strength to shout, but she still couldn't hear him over the blasters.
She pulled him faster, moving blindly, taking shorter, quicker steps. His weight was slowing her down, and now the first few of the things were already making their way toward her. One of them was Gat, his once familiar face contorted into a hideously hungry grin. I am going to eat you, that grin said, and you are going to taste good to me.
There was a brief moment of silence, an incidental lull, and although Zahara's ears were ringing, she realized what Kale was shouting.
"Let me go!"
"No," she said, not concerned with whether he heard her or not. The important thing was that she'd said it to herself-she wasn't leaving him here. In front of her, perhaps six meters away, three dead guards and maybe a dozen inmates paused as if acclimating to their new environment. Then they broke into a loose, shambling, open-mouthed run straight at her, arms swinging, legs clanging, firing all the way. They were already getting better at it. The shots were actually getting close to hitting her now.
"Drop me!" Kale screamed. "Just go! Go! Run!"
Shut up, she thought-her adrenaline hit hard, erupting through her skull base, and her backward run became a backward sprint, her legs not even feeling like part of her now, paddling the floor beneath her with a crazy, blurring speed. The things were receding, trying to run but not as fast as she was, she could outrun them all, even dragging Kale behind her, she-
There was another metallic jolt, and Kale jerked violently in her arms and fell still.
She stopped running, aware of a damp warmness spreading through her lower torso and legs. Everything below her waist was soaked in blood.
She looked down.
The right half of Kale's face was gone, a pulped half-moon. The broken skull protruded from his scalp like shattered terra-cotta, the jawbone dangling crookedly on one hinge. He'd taken the shot that would have torn straight through her abdomen. His good eye rolled up, fogging over. Already she smelled the terrible sweet odor of cauterized hair and skin.
As his head swung down, Zahara saw that the left side of his face was almost completely untouched, except for a single freckle of scarlet under his eye.
There was a muffled snarl, and she looked up again.
In front of her, the things were moving faster now, motivated by fresh bloodshed.
Zahara dropped him and fled.
Chapter 33
Catwalk
They were lost-Trig knew it.
It had happened when they were running blindly from the other side of the hatchway that Han had blasted shut. Nobody had spoken up and said which way to go, they'd just gone, sprinting as fast as they could, away from the scratching, screaming things they'd left behind. They'd run for what felt like whole kilometers-impossible, he knew, but the subjectivity would not be argued with. Eventually, too exhausted even to breathe, they'd slowed down, gasping for air and still not speaking. That was the first time Trig thought Han had somehow gotten turned around and was now leading them in the wrong direction.
Maybe back toward those things in the ceiling, maybe -
Trig cut the thought off, refusing to give it any further credence. Better to concentrate on where they were headed. The long corridors and main transit shafts had long since become identical, air exchangers and manifolds all starting to look the same, and when they arrived at yet another bank of turbolifts that looked just like the last set, Trig couldn't keep it to himself anymore.
"We're going in circles," he said.
Han didn't say anything, didn't even glance back at him. He was looking back and forth down the upcoming nexus of concourses, running the options in his head.
Trig cleared his throat. "Did you hear me? I said…"
"You think you can get us to the command bridge, kid?" Han snapped. His eyes looked hollow and deep-set. "Be my guest."
"I'm just saying…" He pointed the way that Han appeared to be favoring."…this doesn't feel right."
"Yeah, well, we're on a Star Destroyer being chased by the living dead. None of this feels right." Han rubbed his hand over his face, and when he lowered his palm and looked at Chewbacca, his expression showed a deeper gradation of doubt. "We came back from that way, right?"
The Wookiee gave a mournful, uncertain groan.
"Great. You're supposed to be the one with the keen sense of direction."
"I think if we just take this turbolift, you know, up…" Trig started.
"We're almost to the conning tower." Han squatted down and touched his fingertips to the deck below their feet. "You feel how the floor's vibrating?"
Trig nodded tentatively.
"We're probably standing right on top of the primary power generator." Han cocked a thumb off to the right. "It's this way and then straight back, I can feel it. We're almost there, right through this hatchway."
He palmed the switch on the wall. It hummed, the entire platform reverberating even harder under their feet, and a huge space gaped in front of them.
Almost simultaneously, they all took a step back, staring down into the void.
Sickish green and yellow lights illuminated it from above, and Trig leaned slightly forward, craning his neck as far down as he dared, but he couldn't see the full dimensions of it. As his eyes began to adjust, he saw they were standing at a precipice overlooking a deep cavernous chamber that for a moment appeared to be nothing less than the atmospheric null set of space itself. He realized that his lungs were aching for air, and allowed himself to inhale a shaky breath.
"See?" Han said, a little weakly. "Told you we were at the top."
Trig stared down at the massive cylindrical shape, only half visible, so far down, their voices sounding very small against the opening.
What is that down there?" he asked.
"Main engine turbine, probably."
"It's big."
"It's a big ship, kid-the Empire likes 'em that way." Han pointed to the other side, voice solidifying with all kinds of manufactured confidence. "See that square service shaft on the other side? That's probably the main lift platform up to the bridge."
Trig squinted. He couldn't see across, and he doubted that Han could, either. His attention kept getting sucked downward in the direction of the silent turbine. What would it be like to fall that far down? You would have a long time to scream, that was for sure-one endless, diminishing shriek as the darkness swallowed you up. He wondered what might happen if the lower part of the Star Destroyer was open and you fell through it-if it was possible to drop straight down into the hostile, icy bath of the galaxy itself.
"How do we get across?"
Han pointed. "You're looking at it."
Trig frowned. The catwalk in front of them was so narrow that at first he thought it was just an extra contour of the wall. It ran along the edge, stretching out as far as he could see, presumably ending on the other side.
"There's no guardrail."